


so this is the world

by horaetio



Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: Domestic, Fix-It, M/M, Post-War, an excess of mary oliver and musical references, let trapper be soft 2k20, louise and trapper have an Arrangement TM, maine in the summer is beautiful
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-24
Updated: 2020-07-24
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:41:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25491028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/horaetio/pseuds/horaetio
Summary: wonder how i’d feel, living on a hillside, looking on an ocean, beautiful and still…dahlias are a flower that symbolize commitment.a piercintyre post-war fix-it fic.
Relationships: "Trapper" John McIntyre/Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce, Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce/B.J. Hunnicut (mentioned)
Comments: 35
Kudos: 118





	so this is the world

**Author's Note:**

> _trapper john, MD,_ whomst?? don’t know him. this is my trapper apologist manifesto. #trapperdeservesoccasionalrights. these snippets are meant to be disjointed and imperfect as to reflect trapper's experience moving through them. title and occasional snippets taken from “october” by mary oliver. a few other details stolen from mary oliver’s vast body of work, quite a few songs about the oceans and hillsides, and _MASH goes to maine_ (i know. i know. but listen). suffice it to say that i love these two and this is my way of expressing that.

Sudden confusion, hallucination, difficulty understanding speech; John McIntyre is currently suffering from all three of these symptoms, so this has to be a stroke.

“Trapper!”

 _Nobody_ has called him Trapper in well over a year, and it can’t be Hawkeye’s voice calling out to him—because Hawkeye is dead—so he must be hearing things because he’s stroking out. He hadn’t quite expected to meet his demise waiting for the red line in South Station, but he figures it’s as mundane a place as anywhere else. John tries to ignore the voice in vain, hoping that whatever is causing him to hear the voice of Hawkeye passes quickly and painlessly.

“Trapper!”

Nope. Not real. He starts fidgeting with his keys in his pocket, begging the craziness to just wash past so he can go home, relax on his afternoon off, and not think about his dead friend (lover) ( _whatever_ ) ( _who knows, it doesn’t matter anymore, because this isn’t real_ ).

_“Trapper John Francis Xavier McIntyre!”_

Spurred by the use of his full name (because who knows what part of his clearly severely ill subconscious _that’s_ coming from), John opts to indulge his deluded brain, and turns around. When he does, the wind immediately gets knocked out of him.

The visual hallucinations are setting in now, because there’s no way on God’s green earth that Hawkeye Pierce is tearing in his direction, shoving past people on the staircase in order to meet him on the platform. (Because Hawkeye is dead. Because the army sent back all his letters to the 4077th marked _Return to sender; B.F. Pierce, K.I.A._ Because he’s already mourned this loss once, and his heart can’t handle going through this bullshit a second time around.)

He’s greyer and thinner, looking exhausted and swimming in his Class A’s, and he’s one of the most beautiful sights John has seen in ages. But he’s not real. At least, John is convinced he’s not real until he finds Hawkeye wrapping him in a hug that is far too intimate for two men to share in public without getting stared at.

When Hawkeye lets him go, John’s greeted with the same familiar grin he’d come to know over the course of a year. It makes him feel insane.

“Hawkeye,” John says. “You’re dead. I wrote you letters and the army sent them back. I don’t know what I’m doing, talking to a hallucination here.”

“What?”

“The army told me you were dead. I wrote you and got all the letters back with a note that you were—” Jesus _Christ_ , this can’t be real. “I thought you were dead,” John whispers hoarsely. 

“Oh!” Hawkeye says, as if this has a logical explanation, “Shortly after you left, in typical army fashion, there was a SNAFU where I was marked dead for a while. Scared the hell out of my dad, but with Radar’s help we got it resolved.”

“Oh,” says John, as if that means anything. As if this is typical. As if Hawkeye’s ghost (maybe it is Hawkeye himself) explaining things in a straightforward manner, embracing him in South Station, is at all normal. “Jesus, Hawk, it’s good to see you, it’s just that I never expected to see you again.”

“No _wonder_ you didn’t leave me a note, you asshole,” Hawkeye half-yells, though the tone borders on joking, shoving John’s shoulder. (If people weren’t staring at them before, they certainly must be now.)

“What the everloving fuck are you talking about?”

“When you left, Radar said you never left me a note, I raced to Kimpo to try and catch you before you left and missed you by ten minutes!”

John’s head is reeling. “I left you a note in my hat!”

In truth, it wasn’t much of a note, more along the lines of a few quickly-penned sentences that included John’s home phone number and address, and a mention of how grateful he was to know Hawkeye. (He hadn’t known what else to say, so it had been very brief; how do you put all that you feel for a guy, in a fucked up, wartime impossible situation, down in a combination love letter and thank-you-note ten minutes before you’re supposed to leave the continent?)

Hawkeye gapes at him. “I thought you took your hat with you, I never saw it.”

“I don’t know, Frank must have thrown it out or something.”

Hawkeye makes a weird strangled noise that sounds like the distant cousin of a laugh. “He would have; Frank was never one to do a guy any favors.”

“Hawkeye,” John says, confusion layering itself on top of him being shaken, “can we go somewhere and talk? I’ll buy you lunch, I’ll take you anywhere you want to go, I just want to catch up somewhere other than in the station waiting for the red line.”

Hawkeye’s eyes light up. “Wanna come up with me to Crabapple Cove for the weekend?”

“Hawkeye—”

“I’ll understand if you can’t, but—”

“How were you planning on getting back?”

Hawkeye holds up a train ticket. “The Downeaster never fails.”

Oh, my god. “Listen, let me call Louise, okay? I’d be happy to drive you myself, just let me ring her.”

“I’ll call my dad,” Hawkeye says, and hurries to find an open phone booth, leaving John feeling like the top of his head has been torn off. Somehow, he manages to get to a phone, to drop a coin in the slot, and call home like his entire world isn’t currently being turned upside down.

“Operator, get me Fenway-7071.”

“Yes, sir.”

The phone rings twice before Louise picks up. “Hello?”

“Hey, Lou.”

“Hi, what’s up?”

John hesitates, the words jumbling before he can untangle the sentences. “Hawkeye’s alive. He just got back from Korea, and I ran into him in the station, and—”

“Wait, _what?_ Hawkeye’s alive? _The_ Hawkeye Pierce?”

“Yeah. Yeah, he is,” John says. Jesus Christ, Hawkeye is alive. “He wants me to come with him to Maine to see his dad.”

“Oh, my god.”

“I know.”

“Oh, my _god_.”

“ _I know_.”

“Well,” Louise says, with only a moment’s pause, “I think you should head up there with him.”

“Lou, I don’t have anything with me—”

“Come back and take the car.”

“That was the plan, but I—”

“John, he’s your friend, right?”

John can’t tell based on Louise’s tone if she means a “friend” in terms of their mutual agreement, or just a friend, but before he can get into that, she follows the apparently rhetorical question with, “Bring him back for lunch and you can put together a suitcase. I’m sure the man needs to eat something if he’s been on planes for three days.”

“All right. Okay, Lou, see you shortly.”

John takes a second to collect his thoughts, trying to make sense of it all, and finds Hawkeye’s phonebooth.

“Hawkeye, before we head up, let me run home and get some clothes, okay? Louise wants to meet you—” this isn’t _explicitly_ true, but it doesn’t matter—“and she and I’ll make you lunch, and then we’ll go.”

“Lay on, Macduff,” Hawkeye says simply, gathering up his things, and follows John to the platform.

_______

They take the train (well, two trains) back to John and Louise’s brownstone, and Hawkeye meets Louise (who does in fact seem to like him), and they eat egg salad sandwiches, and John throws a few changes of clothing into a suitcase. Then, as natural and as practiced as if they were just taking a jeep to Seoul, he and Hawkeye pile into his car and head for Maine.

The two hour drive up to Portland, and the short way longer to Crabapple Cove, passes by in what feels like a minute. Though he’s quieter, the jokes a little more deliberate, Hawkeye doesn’t stop talking the whole time, and John drinks it all in.

Daniel Pierce is waiting on the front porch when they pull up to the modest Cape. (John wasn’t really sure what to expect; he knows Hawkeye isn’t rich by any stretch, but a house on coastal property in Maine sounds fancy to a man who grew up in an apartment slightly better than the tenements.)

Hawkeye tears out of the car and embraces his father, the two of them sharing laughter and tears. John notices right off that they even smile the same way, with the same laugh lines scoring the sides of their faces. He busies himself with unloading the suitcases from the car as the Pierces share their moment, trying to avoid intruding on their reunion. 

“Dad,” Hawkeye says after a moment, wiping away tears, “I’d like you to meet the man of the hour, Trapper John McIntyre, the hero who fed me lunch and saved me two and a half dollars in train fare.”

“I’m pleased to know you, John,” Daniel says, shaking his hand warmly with both of his. “I’ve heard a lot about you from Ben.”

“Nothing too awful, I hope,” John says, grinning a little nervously. 

“Only a few choice words here and there,” Daniel deadpans before breaking back into a smile. “I understand there was some army foul-up that led to a long-term disconnect, so I’m just glad to know you two are back in contact.”

“I’m glad, too, sir.”

“Call me Daniel, please,” he says, and motions to the front door. “Come in and have some coffee and step away from the rest of the world for a little while.”

Daniel heads back into the house, and Hawkeye looks like he’s about to start jumping up and down. “He already likes you,” he says gleefully, taking his suitcase in hand. 

“Yeah?”

“Oh, yeah, he told me so on the phone, said he was excited to meet any friend of mine willing to navigate city traffic in rush hour at the drop of a hat.”

Friend. That goddamn word again that always trips John up.

John meets Hawkeye’s eyes and smiles broadly. Taking the rest of the luggage, he follows Hawkeye into the house.

_______

Post-seafood dinner that has them fit to burst, the three of them sit in the living room and share stories of Korea and Boston and Maine. Daniel Pierce is as engaging a storyteller as Hawkeye, regaling them with tales of Hawkeye as a little kid, silly stories about a few of the locals, recommendations for things to do should they choose to explore the coast tomorrow. John’s only known Daniel for a few hours, but he likes him immensely, and the warm welcome he’s received into the Pierce household is a feeling he could get used to.

After Hawkeye’s dad goes to bed, they drink wine (real wine, not gin dyed red with food coloring) out on the screened porch/John’s guest room, and continue talking. It feels like there’s so much to catch up on that John doesn’t know how he’ll ever absorb it all. A question has been needling at his ribs all day, and after a few hours and a few glasses of wine, he blurts out, “Did you ever think I hated you?”

At that, Hawkeye inhales sharply and tinges pink, though John can’t tell in the dim light if it’s from the alcohol or from the question. “What do you mean, Trap?” 

“When you didn’t get any letters from me. Did—” He trails off, words suddenly failing him. “Never mind.”

“No.”

“No?” John asks, confused. Hawkeye gets up from his chair and places the wine glasses on a small table. 

“Shove over, Trap.” 

The daybed John’s lying on is small for two men their height, but he obliges without thinking, letting Hawkeye position himself next to him. It’s familiar, it’s too intimate for whatever they are to each other now (best friends) (past lovers) (whatever). John can’t bring himself to say anything.

“Listen, I never hated you, okay? I certainly went through a few stages of grief after your untimely departure—namely anger and depression—but never hatred.”

“Okay,” John says, because he’s never been skilled with words, and doesn’t know how to tell Hawkeye how much of a relief that is.

“We can talk more tomorrow, but right now, I’m tired and I’m not sleeping in my childhood bedroom alone when there’s a perfectly good non-army issue cot with a perfectly good non-army issue friend right here.”

Maybe it’s because of the wine that John doesn’t know what that means, but he pulls the light blanket over their bodies and listens to the crickets as Hawkeye drifts off beside him.

 _Friend._ Goddamn.

_______

“Trap, you keep elbowing me, if you move it, you lose it.”

It seems like John barely closed his eyes before they open again to late morning sunshine. “What—?” 

He tries to stretch and finds himself tangled up with Hawkeye (who is still half asleep himself), reminiscent of the old days of huddling for warmth in sub-zero Korean winter temperatures. Less than twenty four hours ago he’d thought Hawkeye was dead, and now they’re spooning like the old days. Christ alive. 

John then remembers that this isn’t a hotel room in Tokyo, or the supply shed, or even the Swamp, and is hit with a wave of terror.

“Oh, god, oh god,” John blurts out, and Hawkeye startles, sitting up quickly.

“What, what, what’s wrong?”

“Hawkeye, what if your dad saw us?” John hisses, panic coursing through his veins.

“He wouldn’t care!”

“What are you _talking_ about?”

"My dad knows, Trap."

"What—"

“My dad knows how I am.” Hawkeye says, voice still tinged with sleep. “About—about going both ways. And he seems to understand, and wants me to be happy, so I’m, uh, working on that bit.” 

“Wow,” John says, panic waning, and because he can’t think of any other response. (Besides the fact that he likes Daniel even more now.)

“Wow indeed,” Hawkeye snorts, sounding a little more awake. “I don’t think my dad would be particularly interested in the ins and outs of what I do with anybody—no pun intended—but one thing he’s always made clear to me since he caught me and Tommy kissing in my treehouse is that he’ll always love me, and he’ll make an effort to love whoever I love.”

“That’s a hell of a thing to tell your kid,” John says, an unusual, unnamable feeling forming somewhere in his ribcage, and Hawkeye quirks a smile. 

“Dad’s a hell of a guy.”

“What can I say, he made you, so he’s gotta have something going for him.”

The smile turns into a broad grin. “See, you catch on quick, I’ve always liked that about you.”

“Can I tell you something?” Hawkeye looks at him expectantly, raising an eyebrow. “I think you’ve gotten more open about telling me things since I last saw you..”

“You know, that’s funny, because I was going to tell you the same thing.”

_______

That afternoon Hawkeye insists on taking John somewhere called Thief Island for a picnic. He lets Hawkeye drag him down to the beach, where Hawkeye unties a dinghy that looks like a miniature. However, seeing the size of the thing, he promptly refuses to get in it.

“Oh, come on, Trap.” Hawkeye flutters his eyelashes. “Don’t you trust me?”

It’s not so much that John doesn’t trust _Hawkeye_ , but he doesn’t trust a boat that barely looks like it’ll seat one guy who’s over six feet tall, let alone two. “You sure you know how to work that matchbox?”

Hawkeye rolls his eyes. “I didn’t letter in sailing for nothing.”

“ _You_ lettered in sailing?” 

“ _And_ got a college scholarship, why does everyone think I’m lying when I say I participated in highly select jocular activities? First Androscoggin College pre-med sailing recruit from Crabapple Cove.” He takes on an affected tone. “Dad was _very_ proud of his little sailor.” 

John snorts, and Hawkeye motions for him to push the dinghy out into the water. It takes more dexterity than John thinks he actually has, but he manages to clamber into the back without dropping the basket. Hawkeye smiles, amused, and starts rowing. 

The island itself is apparently not much of an island, Hawkeye details as they cross through the cove, chattering on about how when the tide is low, it’s easy enough to walk along the sandbar that connects the island back to the mainland. (There’s supposedly a decade-old bunker on the other side, but this has been neither confirmed nor denied by the local Coast Guard officers.)

As Hawkeye launches into an explanation of how Thief Island got its name, John leans back and watches him, Hawkeye’s smile and the sunshine radiating equal warmth. He’s missed this; missed the casual intimacy of Hawkeye talking about nothing and everything. Missed the laughter in his voice, the way his eyes crinkle when he smiles, missed being close enough to touch Hawkeye’s skin, to—

“What?” Hawkeye says suddenly, seeming to only just realize that John’s been watching him.

“What-what?”

The dinghy thuds to a stop on the shore. Hawkeye looks at him with a soft, if tentative, expression, but remains uncharacteristically silent. They look at each other quietly, the mild tension scored only by the sound of the waves lapping against the side of the boat. 

John blinks, and then his lips meet Hawkeye’s.

Hawkeye still kisses desperately, with the same fervor and barely-restrained hunger that marked their trysts in the supply shed, and their R&R trips to Seoul, and the infrequent Swamp-based sessions when Frank had the night shift. It’s familiar, and warm, and John’s bones ache with how much he’s missed this. 

When they finally come up for air, Hawkeye smiles at him, looking a little dazed. “Hi.”

John brushes Hawkeye’s hair out of his face and grins. “Hi, honey.”

The pet name itself is sweet in his mouth, and it slips out more easily than it ever had in Korea. (It’s not that he hadn’t desperately wanted to say it to Hawkeye every chance he could, but certain circumstances made the opportunities for intimate nicknames few and far between.) Now, with their limbs tangled together on a warm day in July, with Korea almost (almost) a hazy dream, _“honey”_ rolls off his tongue like a gift he didn’t know either one of them needed.

Hawkeye chuckles softly. “What, no ‘hey, sailor’?” 

John opens his mouth to quip back, but all that comes out, suddenly, and sharply vulnerable, is “I’ve missed you.” 

“I know,” Hawkeye says, eyes shining. “I’ve missed you, too.”

They kiss for a while—just kiss, there’s no room for flexibility to attempt anything more—until the wooden seat starts digging into John’s lower back and he gently pushes Hawkeye’s shoulder. “Whaddaya say we take this shoreside, huh.”

“Finestkind,” Hawkeye beams. He shifts above John as the dinghy pitches with the roll of the breaking waves, and comes dangerously close to kneeing him in the crotch when he grabs the basket. “I think I know a spot.”

They set up on an area of grass at the foot of a large hill, close to a cranberry bog in bloom. John’s seen photos of coastal Maine in the newspapers Hawkeye received at camp, but nothing beats the beauty of experiencing it in person. “It’s a step up from tiptoeing through the minefield,” Hawkeye says, and tears into a sandwich.

They spend the afternoon chatting about everything and nothing, from Seoul to San Francisco; at one point, the topic turns to Hawkeye’s plans now that he’s home. “You’re back on American sand,” John says, “what do you want next?”

Hawkeye shrugs. “I’d like to get reacquainted with the insides of my eyelids for a good thirty weeks and take it from there.”

“I don’t blame you,” John says. “You need some time to adjust before re-entering civilian life.”

“How long was it before you were up and playing the violin again?”

“Couple of weeks. Spent a lot of time with the girls, a lot of time unconscious; both equally important and necessary activities. But I think you’ll figure out what you want. What you need.”

“That little three-year police action threw a wrench into my exhilarating life plans, like buying a house and the thrill of setting up a private practice in a town where there’s no stoplights and everyone goes to bed at eight-thirty PM.” They laugh, and Hawkeye continues, “The only thing I really want at this point is a place of my own, maybe I'll build a little house up there.” He points to the top of the hill. _"Wonder how I’d feel, living on a hillside,”_ Hawkeye sings, _“looking on an ocean, beautiful and still…_ ” 

“That’d make you happy?” John asks, and Hawkeye gives him an uncharacteristically wistful look.

“Well, selfishly speaking, I’d also really like it if you were up here with me.”

John doesn’t think it’s selfish at all, but it still stings, knowing he has to leave. With a sigh, he slings his arm around Hawkeye’s shoulders and presses a kiss to his temple. “You know, I think I would like that, too.”

_______

“Trap. Trap, _look_.”

John awakens the next morning to Hawkeye softly shaking his shoulder, framed in the golden light of dawn. “What is it, what’s up?” he murmurs groggily, shifting to get a better view through the porch screen Hawkeye is pointing out of. 

There’s a doe eating leaves at the back of the property, moving quietly along the edge of the forest. It pulls them into a trap of attention, observing her graceful movement in the quiet of the early morning.

Only Hawkeye would wake him up before the sun fully rises to show him a deer. When Daniel had said “step away from the rest of the world for a while,” John thinks this is what he must have meant.

“Isn’t it beautiful?” Hawkeye murmurs.

He is looking at the deer, and John is looking at him.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen a real deer before,” John eventually says, breaking the silence once the deer runs back into the woods. “You don’t see ‘em too much in the city.”

“A step up from _The Yearling_ , huh.”

“Never saw it.” 

“Oh, that’s right, the time they showed it at camp you were busy not-necking with Margaret during the bombing.”

John shakes his head with a surprised laugh. “How the hell do you remember all this stuff? I tried to forget all the stupid details of the 4077th the minute I could.” 

“I’ve always been sentimental over you,” Hawkeye jokes, fidgeting with a stray curl of John’s hair.

That hits John a little harder than he thinks Hawkeye intended. “Still?” He asks, feeling vulnerable. “Even after everything? Even now?”

“Especially now,” Hawkeye says, openly and honestly, and kisses him.

When Hawkeye’s lips are on his, John forgets about Boston and morning breath and his arrangement with his wife, and the only thought that exists is making Hawkeye feel good. There’s no need to perform, to quip back and forth, to try and impress—all that matters is the man in his arms.

The kisses grow more intense, and John feels Hawkeye grow hard against his thigh. 

“You wanna—?”

“Yeah, please—” 

“Want me to—”

“Don’t care what it is, just want you,” Hawkeye pleads, nipping at a soft spot underneath his jaw. “Just wanna touch you, make you feel good, John, c’mon.”

“Okay, okay, Hawk,” John says dizzily, and scrambles to slide off his boxers while Hawkeye does the same with his t-shirt and shorts. 

Hawkeye’s skin is hot under his touch, the feel of the soft smoothness under John’s lips and fingers addicting. John lingers, taking his time nipping and sucking down Hawkeye’s throat, his shoulders, across his collarbones. Hawkeye bites back a groan as John bites gently at one of his nipples, teasing him with soft swirls of his tongue.

“I’m supposed to be making _you_ feel good,” Hawkeye pants, tugging softly at John’s hair.

“I like being good to you,” John says, and grins when Hawkeye’s blush spreads across his skin. When he wraps his fingers softly but firmly around Hawkeye’s cock, he gently rubs the head with his thumb the way he remembers sends shivers up Hawkeye’s spine. Hawkeye bucks into his touch with a gasp, and shifts his hips so they can rub against each other.

There’s no adjective that can fully capture how good it feels, how intoxicating it is to feel Hawkeye move below him, with him, chasing the need for release that’s been months in the making. He doesn’t want to spoil it by coming too quickly, but the noises that Hawkeye is making are sending his brain into haywire.

Hawkeye ends up coming first, spilling onto his stomach with a choked gasp, and John quickly follows suit, panting as they collapse back onto the daybed. It’s a gargantuan effort, but John is able to harness just enough energy to find Hawkeye’s shirt and use it to wipe up their releases from Hawkeye’s torso. 

They lie there in the quiet. It feels like a dream.

“Forty eight hours ago I thought you were dead,” John mumbles into Hawkeye’s hair. “Thank Christ I was so wrong.”

“John,” Hawkeye whispers suddenly, desperation seeping into his tone, “stay here with me.”

“It’s not that easy, Hawk,” John says, rubbing small circles on Hawkeye’s back. 

“It never is, but let a boy dream.”

They lie there in the quiet. When John feels wetness drip onto his shoulder, it startles him. He’s heard Hawkeye cry before, and he doesn’t do it quietly; the silent act is new and frightening.

“Hawk—”

“Don’t mind me,” Hawkeye says with a watery half-laugh. “I’m just having a moment of existential crisis about not knowing what to do with my life moving forward, no real cause for concern.”

“Oh, baby,” John manages, and wraps Hawkeye in his arms tight. Hawkeye buries his face into John’s neck, clutching at him like he’ll disappear if John doesn’t hold him tight enough. 

They lie there in the quiet, and John holds Hawkeye until the shaking stops. “I’ll come see you on weekends,” he says, with an air of confidence that he hopes is convincing. 

Bleary-eyed, Hawkeye lifts his head and gives him a sad, little smile, but presses a soft kiss to his shoulder and pulls him tight again. 

_______

It starts with driving up Friday afternoons and returning to Boston late on Sunday nights. On those weekend days, he and Hawkeye drive the backroads of Crabapple Cove and play checkers and listen to the radio and have sex and catch up on months and months of lost time. 

It quickly turns to late Thursdays and early Mondays.

When he arrives home after work on Monday evenings, it’s okay for the first few weeks. As it turns into months, Louise grows uncomfortably tense about the whole thing, but doesn’t say anything. They continue sleeping in their separate rooms (as they’ve done for years), the rest of the week progresses, and the cycle begins again at 5PM on Thursdays.

It’s desperate and selfish, and John can’t stop. 

_______

Daniel Pierce knits just as much as Hawkeye, but while Hawkeye seems to knit to channel his excess energy, Daniel is much more patient and deliberate with his projects. He also knows how to use circular needles, a skill that Hawkeye refuses to learn. (“All I make are scarves and blankets, why mess with a system that works?”)

One warm Sunday evening, John finds himself lounging in the living room with Hawkeye and his dad, sipping a cocktail after yet another famous “Pierce Special” dinner. Daniel starts working on some new knitting project while Hawkeye fiddles with the radio, trying to get the Portland NBC station to come in clearer in time for Jack Benny.

At one point, Daniel motions John to him. “John, do me a favor, come here and let me measure you.” 

He pulls out a well-worn paper tape measure and John obliges. He stands in front of Daniel, embarrassed by the gentle care he takes in measuring his chest, his arms, muttering the details to himself. “Thanks, John, I’ll be able to get started on your sweater now.”

A sudden lump appears in John’s throat. “What are you doing knitting a sweater, it’s barely September.”

“Well, I’d like to have it finished by Christmas, when you’ll need it most. It gets cold up here, you know,” Daniel says, eyes sparkling. 

_______

“You drivin’ up again this weekend?”

John looks up from the morning paper. Louise’s tone isn’t so much accusatory or angry as it is strained, but she’s waiting for a response. He answers honestly, “I was planning on it, did you have something in mind this week?”

“I don’t want to sound like a heel, but I have a friend I’d like to see, too, you know.”

“A friend?”

Louise’s lips form a flat line. “You know which friend.”

After fourteen years together, sometimes John wishes they’d give up on the corny double-talk and code. Both he and Louise know why “friend” has never just meant friend, why they haven’t slept in the same bedroom since the night they made Kathy, why despite Louise being both his childhood best friend and amazing mother to his kids, their marriage is not what one might call typical. They both know why they have the arrangement they do, and to be fair, John is currently being selfish and not holding up his end of the mostly-unspoken agreement.

Friend.

“Why don’t you bring Nancy by here? I can drop the girls by my mom’s before I head up.”

Louise breathes out hard through her nose. “I want to get _out_ of the house, John, I don’t want to bring her here.”

“Well, I can’t bring him back here yet, the only way I can see him is driving up to Maine.”

“And you can’t give up one weekend?”

“Lou, I thought he was dead for over a year, I’m trying to catch up on—”

“You know, what?” Louise huffs out a mirthless half-laugh that immediately makes John feel awful. “Whatever. I don’t want to start a fight, I’ll reschedule.”

“Lou—”

“Whatever, John. Let’s just drop it for now.”

_______

The good times and the horrors of Korea that John missed (or avoided, depending on the scenario) come out in bits and pieces. Hawkeye tells him stories of near blindness and Olympic-style competitions, will writing and pranking one-upmanship, marriage and divorce, love and death and everything in between.

They talk briefly about Hunnicutt, because he’s an unavoidable topic of conversation. Despite the latent jealousy that John has—mostly due to BJ’s identity as both his literal replacement and as Hawkeye’s other best friend (lover) (whatever)—John thinks that he wouldn’t mind getting to know him. At least, he’s not shutting the door on the possibility; if Hawkeye cares that much about them getting along, he’ll put in the effort.

(“You two are a little more alike than you know,” Hawkeye says one day.

John raises an eyebrow. “That a good thing?”

“It means I have a type,” Hawkeye grins, and waggles his eyebrows, leaving it up to John’s imagination to fill in just what traits he and Hunnicutt share.)

They speak next to nothing about John’s marriage. Hawkeye had been made aware of John and Louise’s arrangement back in Korea, calming one of his nerves about getting involved with John, and since the initial discussion, the topic had been all but dropped. So John doesn’t bring it up, and neither does Hawkeye. 

They do talk a little about Hawkeye’s stint in the sanitarium (and the events that led up to it), but John doesn’t push. He knows enough to know that it was awful, and that if Hawkeye needs to tell him more, he will. He also understands why meeting Kathy and Becky makes Hawkeye nervous, and though he does want to introduce Hawkeye to them, he gets that it’s something that will take time. And that’s all right.

When Hawkeye wakes from nightmares that set him screaming, or wrack his still-too-skinny body with sobs, John is there to rock him as he cries, to stroke his hair, to let him drift back off in his arms as the sun rises over the coast, and to let Hawkeye know that he’s safe.

_______

After three months of the driving-back-and-forth routine, the tension snaps and he and Louise have their first real fight in years. It’s like one of those bad playhouse dramas they broadcast on channel five on Thursday nights; the dialogue is hokey and exhausted, their masks are wearing thin, and it’s time for the act to end.

“He is disrupting my _life_ , John,” Louise posits bitterly after a particularly tense, conversationless dinner. “He’s disrupting the _girls’_ _lives_ —”

“Don’t make _him_ the villain for needing support, you know how I was when I got back—“

“And you had an entire support system to return to! Where’s _Hawkeye’s_? Why is it all falling on you?”

He can’t really answer that. Hawkeye’s dad—the kindest, most supportive man John may have ever met—is supporting Hawk in his own way. And it’s not that members of the 4077th have been absent; Margaret writes Hawkeye every other week, Father Mulcahy and Radar have written some, a postcard from Klinger turns up. (John knows Hunnicutt writes, but he doesn’t ask what those letters say, and Hawkeye doesn’t tell. He’s learning to be okay with the not-knowing.) 

If he tried to give Louise a straight answer, it wouldn't even make sense because there isn’t even a singular reason why John’s taken it all on. The combination of guilt, fear that he’ll lose Hawkeye again, a hint of savior complex, his own neuroses ( _probable_ neuroses; he hasn’t exactly checked in with Sidney Freedman about any of them, though maybe he should), and the fact that he’s desperately in love with the man all solidify into those weekly road trips up and down I-90. 

“John,” Louise says, suddenly quiet (which is dangerous; John knows from years of experience means that she’s made a decision about something and it will be impossible to change her mind), “when we entered into this arrangement, we knew what it was. Who we are, what this was going to be. How long are we supposed to keep this going?”

Oh, it’s really happening. He’d had a feeling from the moment they started going at it that this was where it might end, but the divorce talk is actually taking place. “God, Lou, I can’t have this conversation tonight—”

“Then when are we going to have it, John?” 

“Why do we have to have it at all?”

“Because this isn’t _working_ anymore.” Louise sighs. “We’ve kept up appearances for fourteen years. That’s not a bad run for two people who are more in love with their best friends than they are each other.” 

It’s both terrifying and relieving to hear her say it out loud, makes it a little more real when they talk honestly about what’s been happening for nearly a decade and a half. 

“You’re serious, aren’t you,” John says softly, and Louise smiles gently. 

“Am I ever not?”

John feels himself half-chuckle at that. “Jesus, Loueezus. No, I’ve never known you to do things by half.”

She laughs a little, too, and the tension slowly, _slowly_ begins to dissipate (even if it’s being replaced by self-loathing on John’s part, settling somewhere behind his ribs). “The people we love deserve all of us, you know. Tearing ourselves in half isn’t doing anybody any good.” 

“I know, Lou.”

“So, let’s work on that. For ourselves, and for them.”

_______ 

John quits his job at the hospital, and the divorce is quietly finalized a few months later. There’s no real fire or anger in the process, though there is a little sadness from both parties. (It’s nobody’s fault, Louise tells him, can’t be reduced to one moment or one thing to blame. “Not Hawkeye’s fault, not yours, not Nancy’s, not mine, okay?” she says. “Things fall apart, and third parties can’t be blamed for preexisting cracks in the foundation.” He believes she means that, but it doesn’t stop the growing feeling in the pit of his stomach that he’s abandoning them all again.)

Despite it all, it’s as amicable a process as ending a marriage can be; though Louise has primary custody, she has no intention of keeping him from the girls, her lawyer doesn’t try to take him to the cleaners, and she even wants Hawkeye and Daniel to be part of Kathy and Becky’s lives. That in itself is a gift that Louise didn’t have to grant him, but she did, and John will be forever grateful. 

After they leave the courthouse downtown, papers filed, they hug goodbye, John promises to call once he gets to Maine, and it’s over.

That afternoon, driving up I-90 for the umpteenth time, it’s not so much that a weight has been lifted, but a door has been opened, and this is the first step across the threshold. It feels like a new beginning.

_______ 

For some reason, he’s moved to buy Hawkeye flowers, so he stops to pick up a bouquet of dahlias from a roadside stand. 

_______ 

When he gets back to Crabapple Cove, Hawkeye is waiting for him on the front porch.

“Finished?”

“It’s all finished.” John takes the box containing the last of his belongings out of the trunk, and grabs the bouquet before heading up to the house.

Hawkeye grins delightedly and meets him at the porch steps. “Then I can officially welcome you home. Those flowers for me?”

John is suddenly reminded of Hawkeye asking him that same question in Korea, what feels like a thousand years ago. How far they’ve come since then, to a place where John can buy Hawkeye flowers, and make a home with him in Maine, and think of him as his lover, and be the happiest he’s maybe ever been.

“Yeah,” John says, suddenly choked up. “Yeah, honey, they are.”

_______ 

One night in Hawkeye’s bedroom (it’s finally grown too cold to share the daybed on the porch), John wakes up from a nightmare, shaking and swimming in cold sweat. He hadn’t meant to wake Hawkeye, but he can already feel the man stirring beside him, and guilt coagulates in his stomach.

“Nightmare?” Hawkeye mumbles into his pillow.

“It’s okay, Hawk, go back to sleep.”

Hawkeye rolls over and sits up, finding John’s hand in the dark and, in an act that never ceases to pull at John’s heartstrings, presses his lips to the back of it.

“Hawk—”

“Let me take care of you for once,” Hawkeye breathes, sliding a hand under John’s shirt. He rubs his chest in soothing circles, the other arm wrapped protectively around John’s shoulder. “You’re okay, I’ve got you.” The panic slowly subsides as Hawkeye murmurs soft nothings into his ear, eventually growing quiet as they breathe together in the dark.

“You’re too good to me, you know that?” John whispers hoarsely after his breath steadies, pressing a kiss into Hawkeye’s neck.

He can hear Hawkeye smile. “Quit stealing my lines.” 

“I mean it, Hawk.” Blinking back sudden tears, he swallows hard. “And I know I don’t say it enough, but good god, I love you so much.”

“I know, John.” Hawkeye kisses his temple. “I love you, too.”

John fades back into unconsciousness in the arms of his lover, soft smiles playing at the corners of both of their mouths.

_______ 

They buy the land near the cranberry bog on Thief Island and build the house on the hill. It takes months, and the cottage itself is small, and when the tide is high, they have to swim or boat back to shore. But it’s all theirs. 

“ _Today we built our home on a hilltop high, you and I_ ,” Hawkeye sings gleefully, dropping the last of the boxes in the living room. “Time to break out the champagne.”

“Just don’t try to christen anything with it,” John says, coming in behind him with their suitcases. “Including me.”

Hawkeye clicks his tongue. “Why do you always have to be the practical one? Licking champagne off each other sounds like a perfect midmorning activity.”

They open the bottle anyways, and drink the champagne from mugs, standing on the back porch overlooking the water.

“Is it too sappy if I say I don’t mind us being the folks who live on the hill?” Hawkeye asks. In the Maine sunshine, he looks years younger.

“ _You_ , a _sentimentalist_ , Gracie?” John snorts, narrowly dodging Hawkeye’s elbow.

“That’s _it_ , that’s _it_ , I’m never saying anything remotely introspective to you ever again.”

John chuckles and wraps his arms around Hawkeye’s waist. “If you want us to be the folks on the hill, just call me Irene Dunne.”

“You’re not very wide, but you are high-ly handsome, I’ll give you that,” Hawkeye teases, catching John’s lips in a gentle kiss. 

“This really everything you wanted?” John asks softly, striving to sound casual with the insecurity-driven query.

Hawkeye leans in to kiss him again. “Well, I didn’t quite get my thirty weeks of unconsciousness,” he considers, a smile spreading across his face, “but getting to share the rest of my life with you? Not half bad.”

_______ 

The sharp edges of the world are a little softer in the early hours, when the dew is still wet on the beach grass but it’s warm enough to take in the early morning light. John’s taken to reading the previous day’s newspaper on the deck when it’s nice enough out. (It’s not like Jack, the town paperboy, wants to row out to Thief Island at five in the morning, so they have to pick up the newspaper while they’re on the mainland.)

This morning, Hawkeye joins him outside, bending to kiss him before handing him a mug of coffee. “Morning.”

“Hi, honey,” John says, and Hawkeye hums a little, smile spreading as he settles on the porch swing between John’s legs. His response to pet names never gets old; his reactions are still as warm and sweet as the first time John let the word honey cross his tongue (years ago in a little tent, somewhere outside of Uijeongbu). 

“First day off in weeks and we still get up like we have a shift at the clinic.”

“It all beats reveille any day,” Hawkeye says, leaning back against his chest, and John wraps his free arm around his waist.

“One could say it’s finestkind,” John teases gently. 

Hawkeye chuckles. “Anywhere with you is.”

They take in the sunshine, and drink their coffee, and watch the birds along the shoreline. It’s quiet save for the occasional call of the seagull and the breaking of the waves. It’s a thousand years from where they started, and there’s a thousand years still to come.

This is the world. They’re not in it. And it’s beautiful. 

**Author's Note:**

> this has been a multi-week labour of love, driven mostly by my own homesickness for new england, the support of my dear friends from the MASH discord, and the fact that i think that trapper and hawkeye deserve some softness.  
> please let me know what you think; feel free to hit me up on tumblr @horaetio or leave a comment here!
> 
> also, i'm including below the multitude of references and influences that i lovingly ~~ripped off~~ borrowed from; definitely recommend checking them out as well  
> \- "anyway" by richard siken  
> \- "the folks who live on the hill," sung by irene dunne in the 1937 movie _high, wide, and handsome_ , later popularized by bing crosby and peggy lee  
> \- _MASH goes to maine_ by richard hooker (i don't necessarily _recommend_ it, but i can and will continue to steal locations like thief island for my own benefit)  
> – "october" by mary oliver  
> \- "twin soliloquies" from _south pacific_  
> 


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